Matt of All Trades blog, like the title suggests, is by a Vermont author and offers offbeat musings on pop culture, media, journalism, humor, weirdness, stupid people, smart people, my life as a journalist, landscaper, photographer, married gay man, dog lover and weather geek and more. It's run by me, Matt Sutkoski, a native Vermonter living in St. Albans, Vt.
But parts of cliffs along the coastline near Churchchrist collapsed, raising enormous clouds of dust over the blue waters there. I bet some people had to scramble out of the way as rocks began to fall.
Here's some video clips. Looks scary and dramatic:
A person in a nearby building captured the dramatic collapse. The people filming dropped a lot of F-bombs, which I would have done too if I'd witnessed this. (The swear words were bleeped out of the video you'll see below.)
The New Zealand suspesion foot bridge after it partly
collapsed, sending people in the gorge below
Recently in New Zealand a group of hikers were crossing a suspension bridge over a gorge along a hiking trail. The bridge then abruptly snapped, flinging at least three people off of it.
Amazingly, the people who plunged 28 feet down landed in the water, not the rocks, so they weren't badly hurt, says stuff.co.nz
The hikers, one of whom was filming, said the bridge suddenly let out a loud crack, and three people were pitched over the side into the water. A fourth person clung on to a piece of the bridge and was able to hoist himself back up.
The video, which you'll see at the bottom of this post, shows the hikers calmly walking across the bridge, then the view goes off in all kinds of wild directions as they fall, then the view plunges under water. Then you see people emerge.
The glass walkway in China that
later cracked whe somebody dropped
a stainlesss steel mug on it.
Officials in New Zealand said there was a manufacturing fault in a cable on the suspension bridge, which led to the collapse.
Before we get to that video, there was another scary bridge accident, this one in China. There's a glass bottomed walkway more than 3,500 feet above s gorge.
It would be scary enough to venture out onto the walkway to begin with. Then, somebody dropped a stainless steel mug as they walked across the bridge and part of the glass bottom shattered.
Understandably, this set off a rush of people trying to get the HELL off the walkway now if not sooner.
The People's Daily Online, via Mashable, said only one of three layers of glass broke, so nobody was in any danger. Plus the glass is designed to kind of hold together even if it does crack.
The walkway is closed, however, until repairs are made.
Here's the video of the New Zealand collapse. The slow-mo version near the end is especially terrifying:
Well, a woman in Kansas City decided to do Miley one better by becoming a literal wrecking ball.
According to the Associated Press, a woman driving a stolen SUV, a phone glued to her ear, was being chased by police at speeds of up to 80 mph, when she lost control of the vehicle (Duh!) and slammed into a building, which partly collapsed.
Surveillance video that you'll see at the bottom of this post shows the building falling dramatically in a cloud of dust.
The building stored vintage cars, several of which were damaged or destroyed. One plunged to the ground from the second floor of the building.
Police have so far not identified the human wrecking ball, who we will call Miley II.
Miley II was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, says the AP.
A totally sad story, but I love one glimmer of good news that literally emerged from the collapsing
wreckage of the destroyed building.
The fire had gone on for hours. Finally, the whole building collapsed.
At the end of the cacaphony of the collapse, a cat ran out of the destroyed building. It has apparently been trapped in the building, and somehow survived the fire.
The collapse miraculously didn't kill the cat, but instead creating an opening for the cat to run. It was all caught on the amazing video at the bottom of the post.
The cat, named Sylvester, was taken to a veterinarian and treated for smoke inhalation, but is recovering and has been reunited with his owner.
Sylvester will probably be avoiding fires and loud noises for awhile.
A couple hundred people plunged into the water at a tourist site in China this week when the pedestrian bridge they were on collapsed beneath them.
Down she goes. Bridge collapses in China when too many people got on it.
The people responsible for the bridge said the span had the capacity for only 40 people at a time and tried to control the crowd.
Uh, uh. They all wanted to get across at once. Now if not sooner. Big mistake. With more than 200 people on the bridge, it didn't work. So the crowd that was in such a hurry didn't make it across at all.
Luckily there were only a couple dozen minor injuries, so it could have been a lot worse.
